Sorry ... it’s not personal, it’s business
Aniston’s reason for joining Instagram professional, entertainment lawyer says
They are a dwindling group, the mega-celebrities who have shunned social media, and their ranks have shrunk by one more member: Jennifer Aniston posted a group selfie to Instagram Tuesday and, in the process, “broke” Instagram.
The photo featuring Aniston and her Friends co-stars. “And now we’re Instagram FRIENDS too,” reads the photo caption. Cute. “My friends call me Jen,” says her bio. Clever.
Aniston’s photo debut was so major that it caused Instagram to malfunction. The issue has since been resolved, so you should have no problem joining Aniston’s 8.2 million (and counting) followers.
The actress talked about her aversion to social media as recently as a few weeks ago, telling InStyle that she worries about young people trying to figure out who they are but “doing it through someone else’s lens, which has been filtered and changed ... and then it’s ‘like me, don’t like me, did I get liked?’ There’s all this comparing and despairing,” she said.
Still, the allure has been intense, especially as she does press for her upcoming high-profile Apple TV+ show, The Morning Show, with many interviewers asking the star when she will join social media. “I’m only human! Eventually I will cave,” Aniston joked with E News this week.
A celebrity on social media creates the illusion that your favourite stars are as within your reach as that girl who went to your high school and constantly posts motivational quotes. Newer celebrities have used platforms such as Instagram to build a fandom. And A-list holdouts don’t necessarily represent a generational divide; 29-year-old Jennifer Lawrence is not on social media, just like 58-year-old George Clooney.
It’s an easy and inexpensive way to get publicity, which is especially useful when there’s a big project to promote. It’s not uncommon that producers will explicitly ask the stars to promote those projects on individual social media accounts, said litigation attorney Jordan Matthews, who has worked on entertainment deals. “It’s not necessarily going to be in every deal, and sometimes it’s a handshake,” he added.
While contractual obligations for a social media presence may not be the norm across the entertainment industry, it is becoming more ubiquitous, said Marc Simon, vice-chair of the entertainment law department at Fox Rothschild. But requirements depend on the project and stature of the actor in question. Celebrities who have strong followings and who star in longer-term projects may be more likely to be asked to promote on their accounts. Celebrities who don’t have their own accounts may be asked to do a “takeover” of another account.
Opting to join social media is a personal preference, Simon said. “But I do think it’s fair to say Jennifer Aniston, with all the press from ( joining), made a personal election that served her professional persona and promotional desires,” Simon said. “She is an individual who is not on social media, who did not join social media for personal gain. She’s doing this for her professional life.”
Stars with a massive amount of followers can leverage their robust social media presence to get a better deal. “If the studio and distribution company doesn’t have to put the money into traditional marketing forms, and they can just have the actor promote it on social media, then the argument is the money should be going somewhere else, which is to the actor,” Matthews said.
In 2014, the Sony hack revealed a production company president made a disparaging comment about Kevin Hart after the comedian wanted more money to promote a film on his social media accounts.
“Knowing your self worth is extremely important people,” Hart wrote on Instagram after the leak. “I look at myself as a brand and because of that I will never allow myself to be taken advantage of.”
For her part, Aniston has The Morning Show, which reportedly costs about $15 million an episode to make. She’s already making the rounds on entertainment talk shows and appearing on magazine covers ahead of the Nov. 1 debut.
Aniston’s Morning Show co-star Reese Witherspoon, longtime social media maven presented the actress with convincing arguments for joining, according to Entertainment Tonight.
“You can actually have a little bit more control over the narrative that’s out there,” Aniston told ET. “(You can) right some wrongs and some silly things that, God knows, are said often.”
The Washington Post